Wake Island

Wake Island is a coral atoll located in the Micronesia region of the western Pacific Ocean and an unorganized, unincorporated territory of the United States. The island was first discovered by Spain on 2 October 1568 during Alvaro de Mendana de Neira's search for the fabled Incan island of gold, and the island was named San Francisco due to its date of discovery being on the eve of the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi. The Spanish reported that there were only seabirds and bushes on the island, with no coconuts, pandans, or water being found on the island. In 1796, Captain Samuel Wake of the merchantman Prince William Henry named the island after himself, and the island would be visited by an American botanical expedition in 1841. In 1898, the US annexation of Hawaii and the conquest of Guam and the Philippines during the Spanish-American War led to the USA deciding to claim the unclaimed and unpopulated Wake Island for itself, turning it into a telegraph and coaling station. The island became a US Navy base and a Pan Am airfield, becoming a regular stop for Pan Am flights. In December 1941, the Imperial Japanese Army seized Wake from its US defenders at the start of World War II despite suffering heavy losses, and the island was occupied by Japan until Japan's surrender in 1945. After the war, Wake returned to US control, and commercial flights ended during the 1970s as the US Air Force took over the island. The US Army later took the island over, using it for missile system testing, and the Air Force returned to the island in 2002. In 2015, only 94 people lived on the island, which was a restricted area.